As nuns meet, Seattle Catholics show support

As America’s biggest organization of Catholic nuns ponders its response to a Vatican crackdown, lay Catholics in Seattle will march on St. James Cathedral on Sunday in a “Support Our Sisters” demonstration.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain is the Vatican’s designated point man in getting the Leadership Council of Women Religious to abandon “radical feminist themes” and toe the line on church teaching on sexuality, contraception and same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Peter Sartain

“This is a march about the sisters — because Rome’s action against them seems unfair and misguided: But, it’s also about us — ordinary Catholics — standing strong for the kind of church we want in the future,” says a brochure for the “Flower March.”

The march will assemble at 12:30 Sunday at Louisa Boren Lookout Park, at 15th Avenue East and East Garfield Street — just north of Volunteer Park — and march 2.4 miles to St. James. A van will follow for those who get pooped.

“Please bring flowers to represent every sister who has touched your life,” marchers are advised.

The Leadership Council of Women Religious is in the midst of a four-day meeting in St. Louis, discussing what to do about the harsh “doctrinal assessment” delivered by the Vatican’s Council for the Doctrine of the Faith. The nuns had no input into the assessment.

The Vatican accused the nuns of spending too much time working on social justice issues, and “permitting corporate dissent” on issues of human sexuality.

At the start of this week’s conference, keynote speaker futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard told the 900 assembled nuns: “You are the best seedbed that I know for evolving the church and the world in the 21st century.”

At a news conference, Sister Mary Waskowiak said the nuns “are trying to take a long, loving look at the reality before us right now,” and asking: “What is the church really asking of us. Where do we sense God’s call?”

(Full on-scene accounts of the nuns’ conference can be read in The National Catholic Reporter.)

The Leadership Council represents approximately 80 percent of America’s nuns.

While the Vatican continues to name ultra-orthodox bishops to key dioceses in America, and the hierarchy continues to reel from the the clergy sex abuse scandal, the nuns have exercised genuine moral leadership.

A “Nuns on the Bus” tour in June traveled from Iowa to Washington, D.C., protesting deep cuts in social services proposed in a House–passed budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin. The sisters toured health clinics and English-as-second-language programs, and were welcomed like a winning football team to the University of Notre Dame campus.

In spontaneous enthusiasm, “Nuns on the Bus” far overshadowed the bishops’ much touted “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign called largely to protest the contraception coverage requirement that the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services has put in health care plans.

The month of May saw demonstrations in support of the sisters at Catholic cathedrals around the country, including Tuesday night vigils that drew 150-160 people to the steps of St. James.